Saturday, January 12, 2013

Don Winslow of the Navy (1942) – Chapter 3: Weapons of Horror

OUR STORY SO FAR(taken
directly from the “crawl” that opens Part the Third): Comdr. Don Winslow, U.S. Naval Intelligence, is investigating
sabotage at the new Naval Base on TangitaIsland.

Spencer Merlin, posing
as a mining superintendent, offers to help Winslow, though secretly acting as
chief agent of “The Scorpion,” International spy and Winslow’s old enemy.

Winslow discovers a
murderer, Paul Barsac, is a “Scorpion” agent and trails him in a car. To throw Winslow off Barsac’s track, Merlin
sets fire to Barsac’s car and…

…has a lot of explaining to do to the rental car
people. Well, as predicted—Winslow (Don
Terry) leaps from his car seconds before it collides with the other burning automobile. Now, it looks as if as he when goes into his
leap…

…he lands in the nice soft water below. But because the two crashed cars also end up
in the drink…

…they had a bit farther to fall. Did Winslow had to do a tuck and roll to get
to the water, or did he run down there or what?
I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the long run—but topside, his two
dumb sidekicks—“Red” Pennington (Walter Sande) and Michael Axford
Splendor (Wade Boteler)—spot him climbing out after going for a swim and Don
gives them an “I’m okay!” wave.

SPLENDOR: By golly—Don was sure lucky that time!

RED: I’ll say he was! Doesn’t look like Barsac was…

SPLENDOR: Not if he was in the
burnin’ car…

RED: He must have lost control
right after the fire started…

SPLENDOR: Ah, sure—let’s not worry
about Barsac…let’s get down and see if we can help Don!

Yeah! Barsac (John
Holland) isn’t all that important in the big picture—but you wouldn’t think to
know it from a following scene set at the Tangita gold mine that serves as the
cover for the Scorpion’s (Kurt Katch) headquarters. This week, I did not get to laugh at the
reusing of the same entrance from the past two chapters, in which “brains
heavy” Spencer Merlin (John Litel) stubs out a cigarette before entering the
mine…because both Barsac and Merlin’s lieutenant, Prindle (Robert Barron), are
accompanying him. (Prindle does take a
second to put out his cigarette, though.)
They go into the mine and the guy who operates the mine shaft elevator is
catching forty winks, prompting Merlin to snap at him: “Come on, Karl—wake
up!” (The actor playing Karl goes
unidentified.)

But upon seeing Barsac, Karl becomes quite convivial: “Hi,
Barsac—glad to see you got here!” “I’m
glad to be here,” replies Barsac…and because I laugh out loud at the most
peculiar things, this one definitely produced a king-sized chortle. I found myself speculating on Karl’s life
outside of work—picturing him going home to a hot dinner and the wife,
complaining how inconsequential his day was (“Ach…I lower the elevator…I raise
the elevator…it’s a living…hey, guess who I saw at work today? Paul Barsac!”)…but apparently he’s chummy
enough with Barsac to want to chew the fat when he arrives. (“I like you, Paulie…you’re good people. Not like that bastid M-22…”)

Back in Chapter 1, I giggled at the fact that despite the
state-of-the-art facility that is Scorpion, LLC the bad guys always have to
stumble over a bit of mine wreckage from an apparent cave-in. The screen capture above explains why they do
this (I guess it’s to disguise the headquarters and all).

MERLIN: How does this place strike
you, Barsac?

BARSAC: Great!

“It’s the bestest clubhouse ever!”

BARSAC: But how do the boats get in here?

MERLIN: That’s the secret of the place…an underwater tunnel
leads from here out to the ocean…

BARSAC: It strikes me as the perfect submarine base…

PRINDLE: Especially with our
undersea oil well to refuel the subs…

MERLIN: It’s the only place like it
in the world…our master The Scorpion
deserves a lot of credit for this discovery…

Yeah, yeah, yeah…The Scorpion is great and we’re all darn
proud of him. Merlin, Barsac and Pringle
maneuver their way through the mine until reaching “the radio room” of
Scorpion, Ltd—where the operator who’s always announcing that the Scorpion
requires an audience with Merlin greets Barsac jovially as well: “Hello,
Barsac! Hear you had a little trouble getting here…”

“Yeah—thanks to our good friend Winslow,” is Barsac’s
reply. Merlin’s probably thinking to
himself: “How can I be on better
terms with the service staff? Maybe if I
brought donuts…” Well, this will all
have to wait until another time because the radio guy gets the signal that The
Scorpion is calling—and if past performance is any indication, he’s going to
give Merlin a dressing down in front of everybody.

SCORPION: M-22…I can’t under your stupidity in permitting the Baratavia to
unload supplies for the new naval base…neither should Winslow have been allowed
to identify Barsac…but we’ll discuss your mistakes later…

Scorp—have you ever thought about chastising Spence out of earshot of everyone else? I assume you have an office, maybe?

SCORPION: Now…there is important work to be done…the S.S.
Tarleton, carrying a load of gun mountings and a million dollars in gold, is
due north of Tangita tomorrow morning…the ship is to be captured as a decoy for our submarines…the gold must
be removed for my use…communicate
with my agent Kramer, a passenger aboard the Tarleton…he will give you further
instructions…those are my orders,
M-22…see that they are obeyed…

Merlin barks the order to Barsac to see that the captain of
the Z-37 submarine is “ready for action” (the new captain is named “Ryker”—he
has replaced the late and unlamented “human torpedo” Tranker). As for Don Winslow and his 620
Destroyer—well, “that is a problem,” acknowledges Spence. “It would help a lot if we knew Winslow’s
plans.”

Prindle suggests eavesdropping on Don and Company via the
“listening post”—the fake jungle shack that is concealing a Dictaphone hooked
up to the office of John Blake (Ben Taggart).
This listening post has figured in two previous chapters, mostly as the
site where poorly-staged fistfights take place, and yet for some odd reason no
attempt has been made to seize it or tear that sucka down.

Back in the radio room of the construction office, radio
operator Seaman Chapman (Peter Leeds) hands Don an important message from his
supervisor, Captain Holding. After
studying it for a few minutes, Red asks him “What is it, Don?”

“Read it,” Don tells him as he hands him the message. (“But, Don…you know I can’t read…”)

DON: Yes…we’re leaving for convoy
duty at midnight…it’s important work, but I don’t like being interrupted on
this island job…

SPLENDOR: Well, it makes no
difference, me lad…you’ve bungled it
so far…

DON: Huh?

“Old man, I will kick your Irish ass clear back to Dublin…” Splendor is just having one on our hero; joking
that even though work on the naval base has continued Winslow let Barsac get
away “without finding anything about The Scar-pian’s hideout.”

DON: We’re not through with Barsac yet…

RED: I don’t get you, Don…Barsac is
dead…

DON: Yes…but his luggage is still at the hotel…

“…and very much alive!”
At the listening post, Merlin, Prindle and the other two henchies,
Corley (Lane Chandler) and Spike (Ethan Laidlaw), listen as Don explains to Red
that they’ll go over there that evening because they may find a clue among his
personal effects that will lead them to Project Scorpion.

PRINDLE: Winslow’s convoying the
Tarleton isn’t going to help The Scorpion’s plans any…

MERLIN: I have an idea Winslow
won’t be anyplace near the Tarleton…

PRINDLE: But he just said he was…

MERLIN (interrupting): He also said
he was going to examine Barsac’s luggage…if
he does, he’ll find something that will throw him off the track…

“Little hotel soaps.”
Merlin grabs a pencil and pad of paper and begins to write while
ordering Spike and Corley to take the message to the hotel. Back in the radio room, Winslow is still
pushing his “let’s-ransack-Barsac’s-hotel-room” plan, but is receiving
resistance from Splendor. “Well, that’s
fine, lad—but I’ll creep up no dark alleys or shinny up any posts! I’m too old for second story work!”

“We’ll rent a room!” says Red brightly, and with a
chuckleworthy bit of sexual subtext. And
speaking of sex, it is at this point in time that we hear from the female
contingent in this serial—nurse Mercedes Colby (Claire Dodd) and her BFF Misty
Gaye (Anne Nagel), who enter the office and reference the fact that “Lt.
Pennington” has promised to take them to dinner. Now, we’ve established in this serial that
the Pacific Hotel is the only lodging on the island (run by a “half-caste”
named Tangita Jim) and it looks to be pretty much a fleabag. I can’t believe the restaurant is any better.

DON: I’ve got it! Misty, you’re just in time!

MISTY: Would you mind repeating
that? Red says I’m always late…

A quick screen capture reveals that Misty has been shopping
the Martha Raye Collection at the Tangita K-Mart.

DON: I’d like you to go to your
room at the hotel…

MERCEDES: But, Don…we just came from there…

MISTY: And Red promised to take me to…

DON: Now don’t argue, girls…this is important!

“I’d explain it to you, but it’s far too complicated for your primitive female
minds…” A regular old chauvinist porker,
that’s our Donny. Don ushers both of
them out of the office and then a scene shift finds Winslow and Pennington
getting ready to knock on the door of Misty’s room when Don stops his
friend. “There’s Barsac’s room,”
whispers Don. “Give me the passkey.” Don’t ask me where they got a passkey, by the
way. From the last chapter, we learned
that Tangita Jim (Jerry Mandy) is working with the bad guys so I hardly think
he would be so generous as to grant them carte blanche into anybody’s hotel
room.

So as Don prepares to ransack Barsac’s hotel room, we hear
Misty greeting Don at her door. We also
see Spencer peeking out from another room down the hall, admonishing Spike and
Corley as they start toward Barsac’s: “Be careful no one sees you.” Hearing the two henchies outside, Winslow
ducks into a closet inside Barsac’s suite.
Spike and Corley then go over to Barsac’s suitcase and plant the phony
message in it—Don watches them for a few seconds and then, emerging from the
closet, asks them “Did you find anything?”
(“Yeah—this guy’s packed his valise full of hotel towels!”)

A fistfight breaks out on a special edition of Mostly Dark Theater, where the henchmen jump Don (Winslow had his pistol
drawn, and a random shot is fired) and demonstrate that all those years in
Naval Intelligence have made our hero marshmallow-soft. Don calls out to Red several times (“Pull
these guys off of me, will ya?”) until his sidekick finally gets to the room;
he enters, and Spike and Corley escape without detection (they were hiding
behind the door) except that they bump into Mercedes and Misty on their way
out. Emerging from the room, Red asks
Misty “Did you see two…?”

“Did we! They
practically knocked us down!” shouts Misty breathlessly. “They ran down the hall,” Mercedes points out
helpfully, and Red starts after them…but then remembers that there are still
nine more chapters to go, so he doubles back.
The scene then shifts to Spence having a confab with his goons in their
hotel room.

PRINDLE: Did Winslow swallow the
bait?

MERLIN: I don’t know…he pretended thieves broke into Miss Gaye’s room…Spike—are
you sure Winslow didn’t see you plant
that note?

SPIKE: He couldn’t see me—my back was to the closet he was hiding in…

PRINDLE: I don’t see what good it
will do even if he does find the
note…

MERLIN: That’s what we’re going to
find out…Corley, take that key…slip into that empty room next to the girls and
keep your ears open…

Back in Misty’s room, Don hands off the message he found in
Barsac’s suitcase to Red—I guess he figures this is good practice for his pal,
reading out loud and all.

RED (reading): “The S.S. Mordania
is to be torpedoed at eight o’clock on
the 27th a short distance south of Tangita…it is your duty to see that the ship
cargo and munitions does not reach its destination!”

MERCEDES: That’s terrible!

RED: The worst part of it is, we
have to meet the Tarleton at the time the Mordania’s to be torpedoed!

What to do, what to do…there is a knock at the door, and in
lumbers Splendor the Comic Relief. He
tells Don that Chapman’s received a communiqué from the Tarleton and that the
ship will be due north of Tangita at eight
o’clock in the morning. Corley
is behind a door listening—it looks as if he’s hiding in a closet…do adjoining
rooms share a closet?—and as he leans in for a better listen, the door creaks
slightly. Don picks up on it immediately
and wants to know what the noise was but Misty waves him off: “Oh, don’t worry
about that—this whole place is full of creepy sounds.”

But Don’s not buying it.
He knows there’s somebody behind that door…but unlike his earlier zeal
in Barsac’s room, when he told Red to follow “the Scorpion agents” while he
secured the suitcase, he seems strangely unconcerned with yanking open the door
and capturing the person behind it. I
speculated last week that Commander Winslow seems to demonstrate a yellow
streak on occasion—something that will become more apparent here in a few.

RED: What are we going to do about
the Mordania, Don?

DON (loudly, so Corley and everyone
else on the island can hear): We’re going to protect the Mordania! Inform
Grady that we sail within the hour!

RED: But, Don…Captain Holding said…

DON: That’s an order, Lieutenant Pennington…

RED: Aye, aye sir…

Winslow has adopted this annoying habit of pulling rank on
his buddy that, if I were Pennington, would start to get on my wick after a
fashion. (“Bite me, Commander!”) Corley returns to the room and fills Merlin
in on the details, allowing Prindle to kiss a little butt when he gushes “Your
scheme worked, M-22! Now we can take
over the Tarleton without interference from Winslow and the 620!”

Spence is quite pleased with himself. “We’ll get back to headquarters and send the
Z-37 on its way!” And return he does,
taking time out to issue orders to Barsac—who’s to accompany Ryker on the Z-37
and take command of the Tarleton when the ship is captured. To the strains of Fingal’s Cave Overture, Prindle calls Merlin over to
a periscope so that they can gaze fondly on some stock footage of a Navy
destroyer, which in this case is supposed to represent the 620 as it sails
south to “rescue” the Mordania. “By the
time Winslow discovers the Tarleton is in trouble, he’ll be too far away to do
any good,” says Merlin delightfully.

Merlin and Prindle leave the radio room at headquarters and
continue to make their way through the cave—briefly stopping to see the Z-37
pulling out on its way to meet up with the Tarleton. “And there’s nothing Winslow can do to stop
it,” Spence editorializes.

The scene shifts to more stock footage of the destroyer—let
me state here for the record that if you’ve ever dreamed of watching an old
serial where most of its content is recycled film of vessels and submarines (generously
provided by the U.S. Navy)…Don Winslow
of the Navy is what you have been searching for all your life. On the bridge of the 620, Red is still
fussing about Don’s disobeying the direct order of Holding…and even the wildly
enthusiastic Lt. Cmdr. Grady (Dirk Thane), who’s been placed in charge of the
620 while Don and Red pretend to capture bad guys, is puzzled as well. “He’ll be up to gettin’ himself
court-martialed, I reckon,” muses Splendor.
Don then enters the scene, because he’s detected that they’ve been
talking about him.

DON: Change course to due north…we’re meeting the Tarleton to
convoy…

GRADY: Aye, aye sir… (To a
helmsman) Change course to due north…

HELMSMAN: Aye, aye sir…

RED: But, Don—what about the
Mordania?

DON: That message about the
Mordania was a blind…to get us away
from the Tarleton so she could be
raided…

SPLENDOR: What makes you think
that?

DON: Well, that message wasn’t in
Barsac’s suitcase when I first looked through it…it was planted there later, by an agent!

RED: And you gave me those orders
about the Mordania so that any Scorpion agents listening would think you’d fallen for their trick!

DON: Right!

“Then why didn’t you just grab the agent in the first
place?” “Stand down, lieutenant…that’s an order!” Yes, Commander Winslow is feeling very
pleased with himself and even Splendor comments on his cleverness with “By
golly—you know a trick or two yourself, don’tcha?”

The unsmiling Grady breaks up this Winslow strokefest by
alerting Don that Captain Sanden of the Tarleton has been contacted by radio,
and Winslow tells Grady to pass the word that Sanborn’s to hold his course and
stand by to pick him (Winslow) up—“I’m going to transfer to the Tarleton to
direct operations!” You are so butch, Don.

A scene shift finds Don aboard the Tarleton, bragging to
Sanden (Heenan Elliott) about what a clever little sod he is. Sanden is polite about Winslow wanting to be
aboard to protect the Tarleton, but I think he secretly wishes the guy would just
mind his own beeswax. There is then a
cut to a submarine, presumably the Z-37, and Ryker (no actor identified—so
sorry) informs Barsac that the Tarleton is in its sights. Barsac then instructs him to radio Kramer on
board, and they will proceed according to plan.

Kramer (“Kray-muh!”), the passenger on board the Tarleton
and secretly in the employ of The Scorpion, is introduced to us softly knocking
at a door on the ship. He’s played by
character veteran Paul Bryar, whose real name of Gabriel Paul Berrere was also
adopted by his son (sans the “Gabriel”), who was a singer-guitarist with the
band Little Feat. Bryar appeared in many
feature films and television shows; if you’re old enough to remember the
short-lived TV series The Long, Hot Summer (based on the
1958 movie) you may have seen him on that playing the sheriff. His serial work includes Spy Smasher and Lost City of
the Jungle.

So one of Kramer’s confederates opens the door and informs
Kramer that the Z-37 is “standing by” and “you’re to resume operations.” A small group of men follow Kramer, and the
confederate goes to another area of the ship and knocks on another door—when
that is opened he lets the men inside there know that the taking over of the
ship has commenced. When Kramer and his
people finally do erupt in action, it is daylight (they must have taken a while
getting everybody coordinated)…but he and three other men burst onto the
captain’s bridge with guns drawn, announcing that the two-bit Tarleton is now
theirs.

Here’s where my theory of Don Winslow-as-craven-coward goes
into action. Winslow throws one, maybe
two punches and then runs out of the bridge and down to the radio room. He may be telling the operator to contact the
620 to move out (okay, he does) but when he runs back on deck he turns a corner
and sees this:

Nothing there. So he
doubles back toward the radio room and what does he do?

He hides in a lifeboat.
Kramer and two of his goons arrive outside the lifeboat, and he
instructs those guys to go to the radio room where…

…they end up killing the operator. (That was a dangerous job to have onboard a
ship in those days.) Kramer meets the
two men outside the radio room (where the lifeboat is not more than a few feet
away) and instructs them to “tell Barsac it’s okay.” Does the heroic Don Winslow emerge from his
hiding place to take on Kramer once the two men have run off? He does not.
For all I know he peed in his Navy whites.

The Z-37 submarine surfaces via stock footage, and Barsac
and an identified man climb aboard the Tarleton. They arrive at the radio room and upon seeing
Kramer, Barsac congratulates him on his fine work. Where is Winslow? He’s still curled up in a fetal position in
that damn lifeboat.

KRAMER: Everything went just as The Scorpion planned…

BARSAC: First we’ll transfer the
gold to the Z-37…this ship is to be outfitted as a decoy for our submarines…I’m
to take command, you know…

KRAMER (sounding as if he’s not
entirely on board with this): Okay…commander…

Then the new radio operator whips around to tell Commander
Barsac that “the 620 wants us to confirm Winslow’s message to come within
hail”:

BARSAC: Winslow’s message?

RADIO MAN: That must have been the
message the operator was sending when I shot him…

BARSAC (to the man who came with
him): Go back to the sub…tell Ryker to remain on our starboard side and get
ready for action…

Barsac then tells Radio Guy to confirm Winslow’s call…and to
tell the 620 to come within hail on the port side…that way, when the destroyer
comes within range Ryker “can nose around our bow and torpedo her.” Barsac and Kramer head off to take over the
wheel, Radio Guy sends the message…and Winslow remains hidden, paralyzed with
fright.

The 620 gets the message to come within hail. Splendor is pretty excited about being on
board because now he gets to see destroyer blow shit up. But Red teasingly tells him (and mocking his
brogue): “Remember, Mikey boy…you’re only along by special permission.” Mike sputters and fumes and says something
about knocking him down. Alas, he does
not follow through with his threat.

What follows is more stock footage (God help us) and then a
shot of Kramer, Barsac and two others on the bridge—with Barsac musing that
once the destroyer gets closer the Z-37 is going to shoot at it like it’s on a
target range. Barsac and Kramer then
announce they’re going to “man the main guns” to be on the safe side. This is when Winslow decides to come out from
his hiding place. He traipses down to
the bridge and with the help of his stuntman, knocks the two men out who were
at the helm. Don then takes over and
maneuvers the ship in the direction of the Z-37 submarine. With ramming speed, the Z-37 is soon
blub-blub-blubbing its way to the bottom of the ocean floor. Barsac, Kramer and two other men are busy
picking themselves off the ground near the guns because the impact made them
fall on their fee-fees.

“That rammed our sub!” Barsac cries out—but not to worry,
they still have the guns to fire at the 620.
(Meanwhile, two goons have jumped Winslow on the bridge and are
pummeling him senseless.) Grady and the
others are puzzled as to why the Tarleton is firing upon them while traveling
full speed ahead (Red: “Something must have happened with Don!”). Whether Don is aboard that ship or no, Grady
passionately gives the order for the 620 to fire upon the Tarleton.

RED: But, sir…Commander Winslow’s aboard that ship!

GRADY: I know how you feel,
Lieutenant…but it must be duty before
friendship…

SPLENDOR (a reassuring hand on
Red’s shoulder): Take it easy, Laddie…Don would want it that way, too, you
know…

From what I’ve seen of Winslow’s valor in this chapter my
guess is that he would want to be back in the States, sitting in the bleachers
of a ballgame. The 620 fires upon the
Tarleton, and inside the ship’s bridge the ceiling collapses on Don and his
challenger like they were characters in the 1940 Shadow serial…